Good Laboratory Practices (GLP) standards dictate that medical or laboratory samples (e.g., histologic specimen, such as microscopic anatomy of cells and tissues of plants, animals, and humans) are to be identified and their medical containers or laboratory print media (herein referred to as “print media”, “media”, “media containers”, or “media supplies”) (e.g., slides, cassettes, test tubes, flasks, etc.) be labeled as soon as a sample enters a medical laboratory in order to identify and track the sample and to reduce any potential errors caused by improper identification of the sample. To address these concerns, special laboratory printers (or simply referred to as “printers”) were developed. Laboratory printers are commonly used to print laboratory media with certain identifying information. Typically, once a media has been printed with a label, the sample contained on or within the media can be tracked throughout the process within the laboratory.
To further enhance laboratory efficiency, software applications and systems (e.g., Laboratory Information System (LIS), Laboratory Integration Management Solution or Laboratory Information Management System (LIMS), etc.) were developed to be used to reliably identify and track samples as they are introduced into laboratories. LIS refers to a software system that can be used to receive, process, and store information generated by laboratory processes. LIMS refers to a software or database system that is used to integrate laboratory software and instruments, manage laboratory samples, standards, users, etc., in guiding laboratory samples through laboratories based on a set of defined processes or workflows for quality control in testing these samples. Since LIMS can facilitate simultaneous tracking of thousands of samples, there remains the need for accurate identification of each sample and the media that holds it.
It is important to accurately maintain the specimen sample and print media identification because any inaccuracy (such as due to a faded label) could lead to potential mismatch and subsequent problems. One reason these identification/information labels are difficult to accurately maintain is that the print media typically goes through various testing processes, including chemical and mechanical processes, which can easily distort these identification labels to the extent that some or all of the information becomes illegible. It is important to provide human- and/or machine-readable identification that remains on the print media regardless of the laboratory processes and chemicals it encounters.
Current laboratory printing technologies for conventional laboratory printers include ink-jet and ribbon printers. One problem with the laboratory ink-jet printers is that they require using a special ink that is ultraviolet (UV) sensitive that can be cured so that any chemicals used in the sample diagnosis process do not accidentally remove the printed label from the media. However, each time a UV light bulb (that is required to cure the special ink) goes out (typically, without a warning), it carries the potential to contaminate hundreds of samples and render them unable to be tracked in the LIMS, by way of the uncured UV sensitive ink. Ribbon printers require that a user correctly and cautiously load a ribbon into a ribbon printer without damaging or wasting too much of the ribbon. Further, instead of pre-loading laboratory media into ribbon printers for automatic printing, a user is required to load the media and continue watching the printer ribbon to be sure that the ribbon does not run to the end and stop all media printing processes.
Other conventional limitations include requiring laser toner cartridges, coating the media in black ink that is ablated or removed to create the label image, needing vacuum filters for laser ablative printers, which can be “scratched off” since the laser ablative process actually removes ink from the existing print media.